Defense systems commonly include a radar system and a weapons system. The radar system detects and tracks objects, e.g., a missile, plane, boat, or the like, by periodically transmitting beams of electromagnetic waves in a certain direction from radar sensors. The beams of electromagnetic waves have certain sweep areas or beam widths. Objects within the beam width cause an electromagnetic wave to be reflected back towards the radar sensors. The radar system filters the received waves and uses the characteristics of the received waves to determine the location of the object as well as the object's speed and trajectory. The radar system adjusts the direction in which the radar sensors transmits the electromagnetic beam based on the location, speed, and trajectory of the object, as previously determined. In this manner, the radar system tracks a moving object.
The information gathered by the radar system is also used by a weapons system for targeting of the object being tracked. In a multi-function, multi-target radar system, e.g., a defense radar system during a battle, radar resources such as the electromagnetic energy transmitted at a target and computing resources used to track and destroy targets are limited and must be carefully utilized.
Conventional radar systems typically track an object until the object is destroyed or after a predetermined time after losing track of the object (i.e., a drop track time). In these conventional radar systems, the drop track time is typically a function of a threshold miss value that is set by the radar designers. For example, a radar designer may program the radar system to stop tracking an object after ten consecutive signals are received that fail to include data about the object being tracked. Accordingly, if a radar system has a 1 Hz look rate, e.g., the radar system transmits an electromagnetic wave once every second, then the drop track time of the radar system would be ten seconds (e.g., 10 misses×1 second=10 seconds). Thus, the radar system will continue tracking an object for the entire ten seconds even if the time at which the object could no longer be tracked is significantly shorter than the drop track time due to accumulating errors that cause the radar system to look for the object in a wrong direction. Continuing to track objects that have little-to-no chance of being detected wastes valuable radar resources that could be redeployed to track other objects.
Accordingly, an improved system and method of determining which radar tracks should be dropped is desirable.